XII
From the end of Jubilee – July 1977, Dancing Ledge, Dorset.
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I love these rocks with their emerald-green pools and sea anemones – the sea roaring against the cliffs with their huge silent caves. Jenny changes into her white Elizabeth dress which Christopher has made with lace gloves and great chandelier drop jewels. Her lady-in-waiting, Helen, bustles among the rocks, and David, who plays Ariel, puts in his jet-black contact lenses. The sun comes out fitfully.
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ELIZABETH: All my heart rejoiceth at the roar of the surf on the shingles marvellous sweet music it is to my ears – what joy there is in the embrace of water and earth.
DEE: Yea – a great elixir is the seashore. Here one can dream of lands far distant, and the earth’s treasure.
ELIZABETH: The sea remindeth me of youth. Oh John Dee, do you remember the whispered secrets at Oxford like the sweet sea breeze, the codes and counter-codes, the secret language of flowers.
DEE: I signed myself with rosemary, true alexipharmic against your enemies.
ELIZABETH: And I with yellow celandine, true gold of the new spring of learning. You were my eyes then as now, with your celestial geometry. You laid a path through treachery and opened my prison so my heart flew like a swallow.
DEE: Sweet Majesty, to me you are the celandine now as then before, balm against all melancholy.
ELIZABETH: Ah but I was young then.
ARIEL: There and back there and back
The waves break on the shores of England
The white cliffs stand against the void
We gaze seaward contemplating the night journey
The sun sinks lower
The moon waits to make her entrance
In the south at Tilly Whim
A picture of wind on the sea
In the west a vision of silver dew on a sea of pure gold
In the east a black hoarfrost
The sun eclipsed by the phoenix
In the north a howling chaos into which a black rain falls without ceasing
Now is the time of departure, the last streamer that ties us to what is known – parts
We drift into a sea of storms.
And now Elizabeth and Dee go along that same great highway, and the light of the air about them seems somewhat dark, like evening or twilight, and as they walk the phoenix speaks and cries with a loud voice –
COME AWAY
1983 (Photo: Steve Pike)